Context Navigation

How to encode with ffmpeg from Adobe Premiere Pro

Contents

Adobe Media Encoder can lack the quality, flexibility, and control that ffmpeg can provide. There are two main methods to get your movie from Premiere to ffmpeg:

Output to a lossless intermediate file, or

Use a frameserver

Creating a lossless intermediate file and using it as an input for ffmpeg might seem simpler, but it has two obvious downsides: you have to wait for the file to be encoded, and the output file size can be very large. A frameserver will transfer the data to ffmpeg without the need for a large temporary file, but it is a more complicated method. Both methods have their uses and this guide will show how to do both.

Note: These instructions were written using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

Output to a lossless intermediate file

Save your project and close Premiere Pro

Install ​Ut Video. It is a fast, lossless video encoder (and decoder), and is natively supported by ffmpeg.

Under "Export Settings" choose "Format: AVI" and make sure "Export Video" and "Export Audio" are both checked. Then under "Video Codec" choose "Ut Video Codec YUV420". Lastly, check your "Basic Video Settings" to make sure Premiere did not screw around with the frame size, frame rate, etc, as it is apt to do.

Now you can encode with ffmpeg using your lossless file as an input. See the H.264 Encoding Guide for more information. You can then delete the temporary lossless file once you are satisfied with your ffmpeg output.

Under "Export Settings" choose "Format: DebugMode FrameServer" and make sure "Export Video" and "Export Audio" are both checked. Give your file the same name and path as shown in your Avisynth script (output.avi in c:\encode for this example).

The FrameServer setup window will appear. Choose "Next".

Now you can encode with ffmpeg using your Avisynth script as an input. Example: